Cisco Set for a Leap in India?
Voice & Data tracks the ramping up in response to market momentum at Cisco.
C“Now is the time to move beyond pilots to scale which is why we are really excited about the government’s 100 smart cities program and its vision of a digital India.”
isco has been the name synonymous with networking in India for the last 20 years; and, now it is emerging as an overall technology behemoth. In the words of CEO Designate Chuck Robbins,” My goal is to make the next decade bigger than our last two decades in India”. That these are not empty words are evident from the efforts Cisco is making in India and the results that are ensuing.
India has been on the forefront of Cisco’s overall global strategy for a long time. For more than five years, India has been Cisco’s second global headquarter and accounts for 30% of its overall talent base. The company’s current headcount stands at 10,200. Cisco has been investing $1.7 billion in India on a yearly basis now, since several years. It has charted an India strategy under which it will be investing $40 million towards the expansion of its India facility and $20 million towards training around 120,000 students in India through the Cisco Networking Academy, besides exploring manufacturing its products in India.
Though India contributes around $1.1 billion to Cisco’s revenues as of now, the company is betting massively on Digital India and Smart City projects and expects India to contribute around 5% towards the company’s overall revenue in next five years, up from the current 2%. And if market-shares are the ultimate barometers in business success, then in the words of Dinesh Mlkani, president, Cisco India & SAARC, Cisco excels in being #1 in marketshare in six out of eight technology areas it operates according to IDC.
The ‘Smart’ Government Focus
Cisco eyes great opportunity in India’s focus on building 100 smart cities. The company closed four deals last year for four smart city projects such as Navi Mumbai, Pune, Jaipur, and Lucknow. While Cisco is providing the networking infrastructure for the projects, it is working with partners to provide different solutions such as smart street lighting, traffic management systems, CCTV security surveillance systems, and water management systems.
Cisco is working on Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC)’s ICT master plan for four “Smart Cities”: Dholera Special Investment Region in Gujarat, Shendra-Bidkin Mega Industrial Park in Maharashtra, Manesar-Bawal Investment Region in Haryana and Khushkhera Bhiwadi Neemrana Investment Region in Rajasthan. Under the (ICT) Master Plan, Cisco plans to enable IoE-based urban services as well as provide a centralized Integrated Operations Center to aggregate, analyze and manage real-time data.
Cisco has also entered into a strategic engagement” with the Electronics City Industries Association (ELCIA) to develop Asia’s first end-to-end “Internet of Things” “Innovation Hub” in Bangalore. At this “Living Lab”,
Cisco’s will help provide network infrastructure and expertise to build IoT solutions for Smart Cities, including City Infrastructure Management, Smart Parking, Smart Lighting, Smart Waste and Water Management, Video Monitoring and Community Messaging.
Cisco’s ‘Smart City’ at Bangalore Campus also serves as “Living Lab” for Digital India. With a vision to implement a holistic and integrated surveillance system in Lucknow, the Government of UP aligned with Cisco for a connected physical security solution that transformed the way people, property and infrastructure in the city would be protected. Using a Cisco IP-based city surveillance system and analytics, Navi Mumbai too can now record footage at various points in the city and analyze it instantly. Running on a Cisco network, this solution provides live camera updates and alerts so that security breaches are not missed due to human error or oversight. The Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) has also partnered with Cisco to set up the digital infrastructure to offer citizens
“Since we believe innovation is at the heart of the digital era, we are working with the industry too and not just the government to enable digitization and help drive economic growth and improve the standard of living for everyone. “Hopefully
with clarification on spectrum
trading and more consolidation in the sector in the next 18 months, things will further look up in the next 6-8 quarters,”